Marcia Hayward: Democracy requires active participation of the people

To The Daily Sun,

Democracy thrives with the active participation of the people. When citizens fail to be involved, the results can be disastrous. The situation in Croydon is a case in point.

On March 12, a motion from the floor at a Town Meeting in Croydon reduced the advertised proposed budget for the Croydon School District, slashing it by more than half. This motion was approved 20-14 at the poorly attended Town Meeting. Children in Croydon go out of town after fourth grade to schools in neighboring towns which costs about $16,000 per child. The slashed budget leaves about $6,000 less than that per child. The Free Staters who proposed the budget cut are now saying since there isn’t enough money to operate the school and pay for the older children to go to neighboring towns, the solution is for the families in town to set up homeschool pods or enroll in online classes.

Croydon may be able to overturn this slashed budget in a special election or be able to vote on a new budget next year. An additional concern for Croydon is HB 1393 which would enable towns to set an arbitrary per pupil spending cap. If this legislation were to pass, Croydon could be faced with this budget cut in place permanently until a 3/5 vote to overturns it.

Croydon should be a lesson for all voters to pay attention and be active participants in democracy.

Marcia Hayward

Laconia